


Let's Talk About... Electrochemical Energy Storage

by Nevcolleil



Series: Let's Talk [1]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Phone Sex, Pre-Season/Series 01, Sort of? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 04:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13495364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevcolleil/pseuds/Nevcolleil
Summary: Jack isn't usually the kind of guy who would call a phone sex line to take his mind off of things. In fact, he doesn't know the first thing about professional phone sex.Neither does Angus.Which is great except for the fact that Angus works for the phone sex line Jack just called.





	Let's Talk About... Electrochemical Energy Storage

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a weird little idea I had to get out of my head :p Part of my push to get more trope fics featuring these boys out in the world. Let me know your thoughts!

Jack doesn't even _do_ this kind of thing... is the thing. 

No offense to anyone who purchases the time of a consenting adult sex worker, or to the sex workers themselves, but he's just always kind of considered sex lines and strip clubs and escort services to be the last resort of a lonely man. A sad man.

Okay, that probably does sound offensive - but luckily Jack isn't planning to discuss his views on sex work and the demographic serviced by the industry with whoever he ends up talking to on the other side of his call tonight. Jack's planning to talk to a working girl, like the sad, lonely man that he is.

Or a working _guy_.

The alternative doesn't occur to him until he's listening to his options, spoken in a sultry voice so scripted Jack would have thought that it was a recording if the lady on the line hadn't already had a conversation with him about rules, payment, and add-on purchases.

And then suddenly Jack finds _that_ option really appealing to him. 

Jack's never done anything with a guy before... Although he's occasionally felt curious, even interested in a dude or two. Maybe paying to have a _guy_ talk sexy to him wouldn't feel as much like a step back in his shambles of a lovelife. Maybe it would be more like... testing the waters. Easing into a new dating pool. (Not that calling up a sex line constitutes as looking for a date. Or that Jack's had any success in the pool with which he's accustomed - unless we're talking catch-and-release.)

"Yeah, that," Jack finds himself saying before the operator finishes listing all his choices, feeling _twice_ as lonely and sad for sounding so eager. "Uh, a du- A man. I'll take a man, " Jack clarifies, trying to sound more casual.

And sounding like a real _idiot_ instead.

At least the operator sounds amused by his awkwardness, rather than impatient... Which isn't generally what Jack looks for, in an evaluation of his sexual performance - but they haven't gotten to that part of the call yet, so Jack figures he's still alright.

"Excellent, Mr. Dalton," the operator says, because his boss would have his head if Jack racked up a charge for a _sex call_ on a credit card under one of his aliases. So his real name it is.

"Give me one moment, and I'll connect you to Aaron, one of our _most_ popular male customer comfort associates," the operator directs, without so much as a stumble over the 'customer comfort' bit.

"Most popular, huh?" Jack rambles. "That's probably a good idea." _Jack_ certainly doesn't know what he's supposed to do during a call like this, other than listen to a stranger talk dirty to him until he gets his rocks off. An experienced 'associate' is probably just what Jack needs.

"Just a moment, sir."

Jack almost hangs up twice while his call is being connected... 

But he doesn't, and then a different voice picks up and says, "Hey... Jack. Looking for someone to talk to this evening?"

It's a nice voice - obviously male, but soft, with an interesting dip into a deeper register, sort of smoky, on his consonants. Something from well west of Boston, Jack is pleased to note (SoCal, if Jack's spy-brain isn't mistaken, and it rarely is.) The chances that Jack would run into his faceless sex call 'associate' out in the field, while Jack's infiltrating a crime family that has been operating out of Beantown for at least two generations, much less be identified by him by Jack's voice alone... are slim to none. But Jack's used to looking for potential problems like that one in any situation.

Initiating phone sex with a paid professional? Jack's not so used to that.

"Uh... That's why I called," slips out of his mouth before Jack can do the kinder thing to himself and slap himself _in it_.

'He's just warming up, you goob,' Jack scolds himself, physically cringing at his own continued awkwardness. Having some hot young thing laugh at him is hardly what Jack was looking for when he set out on this quest for a night's distraction.

He would have been better off if he'd never gone looking on Google for one of these call services. He could have just footed it to the corner store down the block from his motel and picked up some cheap liqour, and _drinked_ his thoughts of Sarah away, like a normal person.

Only... The guy on the other end of the line doesn't laugh at Jack. 

"What do you want to talk- Wait, what?" the guy says, switching to an only _slightly_ less smoky voice halfway through."Uh. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Sorry. I just..." There's an uncomfortable silence while he apparently searches, and fails to find, a suitable explanation for the more or less rote greeting.

"... I didn't know how else to start," he says at last, when Jack doesn't say anything to help him out. (Not out of meanness... Jack doesn't know _what_ to say. He's been caught off guard, truth be told.)

This kid is _not_ as advertised.

He speaks like he's making a confession, and he lets loose a sigh of such _abject_ defeat that Jack feels the corners of his lips turning up before he's realized why he's smiling.

Are phone sex workers supposed to be cute? Jack still doesn't know shit about these kinds of calls, but he's pretty sure they're not. And he says so. Or... something like that.

"Well, sweetheart," Jack says (Do men let you call them sweetheart unironically in circumstances like this? Jack hopes so.) "I imagine you start just the way you always start one of these calls. Didn't the lady at the switchboard say you're, like, y'all's ' _most_ popular customer comfort associate' or something? "

Like he's not paying attention to what he's saying, or doesn't realize he says it loud enough for Jack to hear, the kid (Jack will eat his boot if he's older than twenty-five) grumbles under his breath, "She says that about everybody."

Jack feels like a real asshole, but he can't help it. Suddenly _he's_ the one laughing.

" _Dude_ , how many of these calls have you actually taken?" it undoubtedly breaks every rule of the sex worker industry to ask... but Jack doesn't even think, he just asks it. And all evidence points to this probably being the most non-typical phone sex call anyone has ever made or received. The rules probably don't even apply at this point.

The guy doesn't say anything, and maybe he just doesn't want to answer, but for some reason - in some way - Jack just knows, he _knows_ that he's right when he genuinely gasps and says, "Ah, no, man, are you shitting me? This- Tell me this isn't your first day on the job, son."

Silence again.

Yeah, Jack is definitely right. 

And the kid doesn't appreciate that fact in the least. Over another involuntary burst of laughter, Jack hears the guy sass him with, "Okay, so... this might be my first call. But I still know all the rules well enough to remind you that daddy play is an add-on that will cost you extra."

"Oh, really, Mr. Popular," Jack falls into teasing like he's been making eyes at the guy all evening across a crowded bar. Something about him... Just makes Jack think that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea choosing tonight's activity. "And the starting cost... that gets me what, huh? 'Cause I am enjoying myself so far, don't get me wrong. But you are certainly not what I expected when I called in here tonight. "

Jack in no way means that as a criticism, but the pause on the other end of the line that follows his words is distinctly different before the kid (Jack's gotta start using his name before he starts to feel like a real perv - was it Adam? Alan? Jack should have been paying more attention) says, in a tight, quiet voice, "I really am so sorry. I'm not really- I mean, I know I don't -"

Jack's not actually sure what the guy 'isn't' and 'doesn't ', but Jack lets him ramble until he gets to the dejected-sounding point of it all. 

"Look, if you hang up now and call back, I'll make sure Frankie doesn't charge you for any of this, alright?" he says. "I apologize for the inconvenience. Just give me five minutes to check in and-"

"Hey, hey, hey now! Hold your horses there. I wasn't complaining!" Jack interjects as soon as he can. "I was just saying. No need to go runnin' off. I think you're doing just fine. "

Perhaps not by the standards of the other horny bastards out in the world who call in to services like this, but fuck them anyway. Jack's too new to this himself to _have_ standards. As he sees it, that makes them pretty perfectly matched.

"...Really?" his not-so-focused-on-the-sex phone sex associate says, sounding skeptical.

"Okay, well, maybe not. " That gets Jack a chuckle. "But hey, this is my first time callin' one of these phone sex lines," he admits, "So I'd say we're even."

"We don't call it phone se-," the kid starts to correct him and then thinks better of it - or maybe he's still just so surprised by Jack's lighthearted approach to their unsexy sex call that he can't focus. He sounds wary as he asks, like he's waiting for a punchline or an about-face, "Your first time? "

"That's right."

"Huh. And you really don't mind getting charged for the... three minutes and fifty-three seconds that we've talked so far, even though not one _word_ of it has been even remotely sexy?"

"I don't know... I kinda found you reminding me about the rules a little sexy," Jack says, mostly to see if he can get the guy to laugh again, although Jack isn't actually joking. "Is that an add-on? "

He doesn't laugh, but the kid does sound less wary and a lot more amused when he tells Jack, "No... No, that's included."

"Well, alright then. I'll want some more of that. But first, you've gotta tell me what to call you, man. What did your operator say your name is?"

Jack guesses, "Aaron?" just as he hears, "Angus." Which is just about the farthest thing from what Jack thought the operator had said.

But then, that probably explains why the kid sort of groans and curses quietly, as if from a distance - like he's momentarily pulled his phone away from his face. "That is... an interesting working name, my man," Jack says. "Is that supposed to be some kind of play on words referencing _meat_ or something? "

"Oh my god, _no_. That's- that is a truly awful thought, Jack," _Angus_ protests immediately. "It's my real name... which. I wasn't supposed to tell you."

No, Jack doesn't see a very long or illustrious career in the phone sex business in Angus's future - but it's not as though that's a bad thing.

In the meantime, Jack feels a grin spread across his face. He definitely made the right decision this evening.

"Is there anything else you're not supposed to tell me that you'd like to get off your chest, Angus?" Jack asks.

"Well, I could tell you about my graduate thesis," Angus says wryly, obviously poking fun at himself, "or something equally personal and inappropriate."

There's probably a good reason the men and women who answer these kinds of calls aren't supposed to talk about things like that, but Jack isn't joking about this either - he's curious. More curious than he's ever been about another man before - just from talking to a guy anyways. And maybe that's the saddest thing Jack has done all night - get all "curious" about a pretty voice on the other end of a sex line - at least if he thinks about it.

But wasn't the point of his calling this line tonight to help Jack not think?

"Why not?" Jack says. "Tell me about it."

"I... seriously doubt you called here to talk about maximizing functionality in electrochemical energy storage devices with mechanical interfaces, " Angus rattles off like not only do all those words make sense together - but like he isn't the smartest man in the room just for knowing that they do.

"I called to hear another human voice that isn't, 'a', my ex; 'b', my boss; or, 'c', someone I'd have to spend the whole conversation lyin' to one way or another," Jack finds himself being unusually honest in the face of Angus's self-consciousness .

Too honest, really. But apparently that was just what _Angus_ needed. After a pause that is somehow less uncomfortable than the last, Angus says - sounding more natural than he has all night (and, yeah, that slight huskiness is apparently natural - boy really does have the voice for phone sex; it's almost a shame he's so godawful at it) - "I don't know... I tend to get a little preachy when I talk about current electrochemical energy storage practices," Angus quips. Jack can tell he's joking because he sounds sassy again.

"Well, then, you preach it, baby," Jack joins in. He doesn't have to be a wordsmith to appreciate ironic word choices from time to time. "Who knows? Maybe I'll even learn something."

They talk for at least an hour, and Jack actually does. If all phone sex workers aren't cute and awkward and nerdy and assertive... well, then, he would prefer to direct all his calls to just this one.


End file.
